Learning from incidents (LFI) is a process through which employees and the organisation seek to understand any negative safety events that have taken place in order to prevent similar future events. Negative safety events would include both actual incidents with damages to human wellbeing, organisational resources or the environment or near-miss events where larger impact incidents have been closely avoided. There have been a series of studies on the complex nature of enacting LFI in practice in organisations, yet further work is still required to address this multi-faceted phenomenon (Lukic et al., 2010; Margaryan et al., 2017). One of the key issues with approaches to LFI is that they are often happening within the setting of complex sectoral, disciplinary and departmental structures and boundaries each coming with their own knowledge, values, language and understandings. Such knowledge boundaries (interdisciplinary, interprofessional, intersectoral and interdepartmental) in workplace safety could cause challenges to understanding and enacting LFI processes in order to improve safety and increase safety knowledge opus of an organisation. On the other hand, if such diversity of knowledge is utilised and managed in a proper manner it could potentially lead to more innovative and holistic solutions to LFI and ensuring it is owned and enacted throughout the whole organisation.
The aim of this PhD project is to explore and test empirically the impact of knowledge boundary-crossing on successful learning from incidents in the workplace.
The supervisory team is composed of experts in the field of organisational learning and management processes. Dr Dane Lukic has been involved in several LFI projects funded by the Energy Institute and other energy sector companies and has contributed to the development of LFI practical tools used throughout the energy sector as well as conducted research in knowledge boundary crossing in the workplace. Dr Zhi Wang is an expert in leadership and entrepreneurship and has supervised a number of successful PhD students.
Candidates are requested to submit a more detailed proposal (a maximum of 2000 words) on the project area as part of the application. In this proposal, the applicant can use their knowledge and interest to propose a more detailed avenue of research based on the overall aim of the proposed PhD study.
Since LFI is a multifaceted problem, and this is an interdisciplinary project, applicants with relevant background in learning sciences, organisational learning, organisational sciences, safety engineering, knowledge management and safety management are invited to apply. Interdisciplinary backgrounds and degree/experience related to aspects of LFI are welcome as well as applicants with a background in interdisciplinarity studies. Previous work or educational background in learning from incidents and safety is desirable.
How to Apply
This project is available as a 3 years full-time or 6 years part-time PhD study programme with an expected start date of 1 October 2021 or 1 February 2022.
Candidates are encouraged to contact the research supervisors for the project before applying. All applicants must include a research proposal in their application.
To apply for this project as a full-time candidate, please click here.
To apply for this project as a part-time candidate, please click here.
For further information on the application process, see: https://www.gcu.ac.uk/research/postgraduateresearchstudy/applicationprocess/.
Please send any other enquires regarding your application to [Email Address Removed].
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